Gaudavaho

Author(s): Vakpatiraj, Narhari Govind Suru, P L Vaidya, A N Upadhye, H C Bhayani
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

Page 453

Gaüdavaho
and the body and limbs of a man. red and his body golden.
156
His face is white, his wings
136. The creeper-bowers had been places of resort or rendezvous for heavenly couples. They are, therefore, sorry to find these places in flames along with the mountains!
137. Observed from great heights, the river-beds, flowing over mountain-slopes, looked like bandages (r) over the wounds of mountains!
138. The animals, coming out from the caves and wanting to descend down, could only see the mountain-wings being clipped and heaped up and no solid ground down below.
139. Of the mountain-wings, half of them, being lighter, get scattered about in the air, while the other half, heavier at the base, drops down on the ground.
140. While the trees have fires burning at the bottom, columns of smoke have massed up above on their tops. The Poet imagines them i.e. smoke-columns to, be the formations of shadows (T) thrown up by the fire-light (r) down below.
141. Meru is a golden mountain and so are also the fireflames caused by the clipping of wings. There was a doubt, therefore, as to whether the reddish-yellow glow was the result of fire-flames or just the natural colour of the mountain, whose wings have perhaps remained intact. Hence it became necessary to repeat the blow of the thunderbolt.
142. The blow from the thunderbolt developed greater striking power, when hit with force by the wings of another
mountain.
143. The ocean is a Ratnakara or a mine of jewels. The mountains, falling with force in the waters, splashed up and stirred mighty waves, throwing up and scattering the heaps of gems' at the bottom. The red glow of jewels enveloped the waves and gave the impression that they were, not waves, but the mountains themselves with blazing wings.
144. The thunderbolt, like lightning, crashes on the mountain and pierces deep inside its body causing a crater. The angry mountain closes its folding wings over the thunderbolt and as a